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I. Pieces, bits and bytes:
• BIT - The smallest possible piece of data. It can be either a 0 or a 1. If you put a bunch of bits together, you end up in the 'binary number system'
i.e. 00000001 = 1 00000010 = 2 00000011 = 3 etc.
• BYTE - A byte consists of 8 bits. It can have a maximal value of 255 (0-255). To make it easier to read binary numbers, we use the 'hexadecimal number system'. It's a 'base-16 system', while binary is a 'base-2 system'
• WORD - A word is just 2 bytes put together or 16 bits. A word can have a maximal value of 0FFFFh (or 65535d).
• DOUBLE WORD - A double word is 2 words together or 32 bits. Max value = 0FFFFFFFF (or 4294967295d).
• KILOBYTE - 1000 bytes? No, a kilobyte does NOT equal 1000 bytes! Actually, there are 1024 (32*32) bytes.
• MEGABYTE - Again, not just 1 million bytes, but 1024*1024 or 1,048,578 bytes.